


Shāh māt

by TheLionInMyBed



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, Chess, Daddy Issues, Gen, I barely even know how to play chess, It's fine it's just an unsubtle metaphor, Politics, The Finwean flare for the dramatic, boardgames in place of family therapy, brother issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 20:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10839219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: Fingolfin wants to be king. Maedhros wants him to be king. You'd think reaching an agreement on the matter would be simple.It isn't.





	Shāh māt

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Шах и мат](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12590832) by [rio_abajo_rio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rio_abajo_rio/pseuds/rio_abajo_rio)



> 'Shāh māt' is a Persian phrase thought to be the origin of 'Checkmate.' It means, literally, 'the king is stumped.' Ahahaha _hahaha_

Maedhros’ expression was unreadable as Fingolfin set up the board though it was hard to tell if that was intention or the opiates. “I hate chess,” he said at last.

Forgiveness came slowly for his brother’s sons, forgetfulness not at all, but Fingolfin was a father and some instincts went bone deep. Fingon cosseted, his brothers bickered and neither was likely to do the boy any good. This might, he thought. “Perhaps you will indulge me?”

“It’s an ungrateful guest that does not entertain his host, or so _He_ always said. What else would you have of me?” The sudden sharpness - in that moment Maedhros sounded very like his father - was better than blank incomprehension at least. In Fëanor’s voice, Fingolfin had always mistaken that edged tone for jealousy. If he’d known it then for the fear it truly was, some things might have gone very differently.

“Just chess,” he said and made his move.

Finwë had taught all his children to play out of, Fingolfin suspected, a vague sense that it was what fathers were supposed to do. He had stopped when Fëanor, upon losing a game to Findis, declared it as a waste of time that could be better spent creating things of value. Oh, he would play when Fingolfin asked but with such obvious forbearance that he had learnt very swiftly not to.

Fingolfin had taught his own children in turn but all lacked the temperament; Fingon was brilliant but prone to growing bored and suicidally reckless if the game dragged on too long; Turgon was the opposite, so risk averse that every match turned into a tedious standoff; the youngest two were even more distractible than his eldest.

Despite his protestations now, it was Maedhros that had played Fingolfin most often, years ago when the peace between their houses was fragile but not yet broken. If Maedhros had not been a master then, he had been a pleasantly diverting opponent. That was no longer so. He made moves that, when they followed the rules at all, made little sense and his attention wandered so badly that Fingolfin once had to call his name and shake his shoulder to make him take his turn.

“Checkmate,” Fingolfin said when delaying the inevitable began to feel cruel.

“What?” Maedhros blinked at the pieces. “Oh.” He tapped his king upon its carven crown, knocking it over, and then picked it up and held it dangling above the board.

Fingolfin took it from him, gently, and put the rest of the pieces away. “Would you like to play tomorrow?”

“No,” Maedhros said and then, when Fingolfin was half out of the tent, “Liking has little to do with it. Tomorrow.”

***

“Did you always hate chess?”

“Always,” Maedhros said, wan still but with something close to a smile. It had been a month and much had improved, his game included. Better, indeed, than the boy that he had been in Valinor, now that he no longer made his moves at random or became irrationally attached to certain pieces.

“You played against me for years without saying so. An excuse to see my son?” Disapprove though he might, if Morgoth and all his legions couldn’t dissuade Fingon from his affection, Fingolfin knew better than to try himself.

“I never needed an excuse for that.” Maedhros reached out towards his knight but reconsidered. “I was young and foolish and thought you and Father might still be reconciled if everyone just made an effort.” He moved a rook instead.

Fingolfin sighed. The boy wasn’t stupid but he was dutiful to a fault which amounted to almost the same thing. “Do you ever do anything for its own sake?”

“Do you?” Maedhros said blandly and moved a pawn. Some little daylight filtering through the canvas and the open flaps but most of the light came from the brazier in the centre of the tent, its wrought iron belly glowing cherry red. Having wood to burn was a luxury yet, one to be revelled in, and, while Fingolfin would never have ordered it himself, he had not objected when Maedhros begged the blaze built up in deference to his illness. It was Fingolfin though, that sat so close to the flames they almost singed his hair while Maedhros looked uncomfortable in a thin linen shift.

Fingolfin thought a moment and then took his castle. “ _I_ enjoy chess.”

“You must be desperately short of opponents. I concede.” Maedhros said it easily. He might have prolonged the match, even clawed his way to a draw but, being burdened with it himself, Fingolfin recognised the Finwëan flair for the dramatic. Nothing indeed for its own sake

They shook, left handed, over the board. Maedhros smiled still but his eyes were very distant. “I’m not as young as I was nor, I hope, quite so foolish. I know it will take more than a game to bridge thirty years and ten thousand miles of ice.”

“It will. I’d be interested to hear what you think will be enough.”

“A kind uncle would tell his nephew, lest he offer further insult.”

“I have already shown you great kindness,” Fingolfin said brusquely. It was not always easy to tell a thrall’s wariness from the wheedling prevarication Maedhros had always employed; the former he had some sympathy for, the latter no patience with. “Much as I enjoy it, chess is a poor analogy for war and rule. It is not a king’s place to be defended. It is he that must sacrifice, again and again and again. Is there a sacrifice large enough for the crimes of all your people?”

There was, as they both knew. Or as Fingolfin hoped they did - he had thought he understood his brother but time and again he had been wrong and all their people had suffered for it. He had suffered for it himself, though that was surely the lesser crime.

Maedhros’ face was set into the not-quite-frown he wore during a game when he had spotted one of Fingolfin’s traps and was navigating his pieces around it. “It seems wrong to call it a sacrifice when it is rightly yours.”

“I thought perhaps you had forgotten that Losgar was not only betrayal but theft.”

“I did not speak of what was taken on the ships - though I will see to that, of course, as soon as I am able.” He paused but Fingolfin did not interject with when that would be - king or not, it was Fingolfin’s camp they dwelt in, with Fingolfin’s soldiers all about. “Aredhel tells me you’re in need of horses.”

“Horses?” Fingolfin echoed, letting the word hang in the air. Letting the weight of frozen fingers and hollow-cheeked children, of all the faded and the fallen, of Argon and Elenwë come to rest where it belonged.

“Uncle, please. I’m not trying to buy your forgiveness with livestock.” There was a long pause in which the fire whispered to itself and, outside the tent, the guard whistled snatches of an old ballad off key. Maedhros plucked at a loose thread hanging from his sling, winced and then folded his hand in his lap. “I would give you the crown.” He said it very carefully, the words quite plainly long rehearsed.

“ _Ah_.” Fingolfin released a breath he did not know he had been holding.

“You’re surely not surprised?”

“I had hoped you would be wise enough.” Hoped but never expected. He found he _was_ surprised.

“Only one of us is named for wisdom,” Maedhros said. “You are the eldest of our line upon this shore, Uncle. As I said, it is no sacrifice.”

“Your brothers will not agree.”

“They’ll obey though.”

“Your followers will say I robbed you.”

“Poor mad cripple that I am? Surely better to be ruled by you than such a creature. _Your_ people will say I bought you with gilt and empty promises.”

“And horses.” They _were_ in desperate need of them. Those animals that had survived the terrible cold, the treacherous footing and starvation rations had not lasted past the first years of the trek, when fresh meat seemed so much more valuable than transport.

“Of course.” Maedhros smiled just a little, that manufactured poise falling away. “I thought you would- I know these are not the best circumstances, but I never thought I’d have to _persuade_ you to take it.” He was hopeful, Fingolfin saw. Tired and more desperate than he had at first let on.

“You see why I am wary?” Fingolfin said, keeping his own face stern. Stern but not unkind - it was an expression every parent came to master sooner or later.

“I’m not your opponent, Uncle. I’m not my-” Maedhros flinched and could not finish. Though Curufin resembled his father most, Fair Celegorm the least, all Fëanor’s sons were very like him in face, and Fingolfin found himself grateful for the unsteady light of the brazier whose shifting flames did much to hide that semblance. Grateful, if he was entirely honest, for the way that pain and injury had blurred Maedhros’ features like a careless hand swiped across a likeness sketched in charcoal.

“The kingship meant much and more to your father,” Fingolfin said. “It seems strange for his heir to hand it away so lightly.”

“Not lightly. I would have his legacy be the best of what he was, and Father never wanted to be king.”

That was a transparent attempt to draw him but Fingolfin could not resist the bait. “I had rather the opposite impression. The sword held to my throat made quite a pointed argument.”

“He was a scholar and an artist. He loved Grandfather Finwë more than anything and was the best father he could be to us- Don’t look at me like that, he _was_.” That ire was the first expression Fingolfin was certain was unfeigned. “But he was not a good king. You know why he wanted it.”

“Yes.” Fingolfin wondered, sometimes, if his own desire sprang from the same place. But he had _enjoyed_ his time as regent of Tirion. The crown had been an easy burden for all the knowledge of his father’s choice weighed heavy. There were great works to be done and he had the desire and the ability.

But he thought of the sick light in his brother’s eyes, of a brilliant man reduced to a mad dog snapping after its own tail, not knowing what it would do if it ever caught it, and he hesitated.

Maedhros twitched, his right arm jerking in its sling, and then he raised the left instead to stifle a yawn. “Uncle, please. Just take the damn crown so that I can nap.”

“Pity, Nephew? A poor play.” Still, an effective one. The tension had broken and Fingolfin let himself smile.

“You taught me the game,” said his nephew, as innocently as he had a two centuries ago, though then most of his stratagems had been to avoid being sent to bed.

“So I did.” Fingolfin rose, leaving their board and scattered pieces where they stood upon the nightstand. “Get some sleep. We’ll play another game tomorrow.”


End file.
